A forum to discuss Open Gaming - which are free games that are released with a Creative Commons licenses. Post up any Open games you find or find out more about the licenses from our resident Open Gaming expert Sanglorian from FOSsil Bank Wiki.

Here's an announcement for my new free game that I wrote over the weekend (don't worry, it'd been in design longer, just it was typed out on my hard drive over the weekend/today). It's a pretty generic fantasy setting, but it's based on a radically different system than most I've seen before.

It uses a variation of blackjack for determining the result of "draws". It's a pretty fledgling system, and right now (as of this posting), only the very basic core rules and a piddly amount of magic samples are available (it avoids major writing of a lot of different things by using a bonus system instead of equipment- although the bonus may be due to equipment, all equipment and bonuses function the same, and there is no need for specific equipment tables/lists).

The next thing on the list is a short guidebook to running a coherent game (as opposed to just messing around with the system), with advice for new players (it is designed to permit solo play) and a short adventure.

It will be up here soon potentially (I've submitted it), but if you're impatient, you may go to either my personal site, or Telgrathia's site to get it.

It's pretty shoddy, I'll admit, because I'm humble, but I still think you could have some fun with it.

Oh, by the way, Telgrathia is pretty much public domain. I don't care what is done with it, whether it is sold or not, so long as my name remains with what I've done. (CC-BY, if you really are a stickler for a title)

Well, I thought it was the first blackjack-styled tabletop game, but I was wrong. Still, I prefer Telgrathia's more simple system. It seems to me like Bust uses a lot of arbitrary stuff, making it more inspired by, rather than based on, blackjack.

Bust seems like it would be pretty hard to remember, though I do like it's system of challenges=cards, rather than players picking cards. It would be nice if the system were a little less complex. A quick glance-through really left me a mite confused.

Telgrathia is based on an attribute-skill system where each point of an attribute allows you to draw a card, and each point of skill permits you to ignore one point over 21 (which each count as two points off the draw). So basically, in Telgrathia, attributes don't matter too much if you're too much of a novice to be safe while drawing. In this way, it remains the same as playing blackjack, but slightly changes the number generation so that busting is less devastating (so it doesn't kill a favorite character too quickly).

Thanks. I'm really struggling to get some publicity. Prior to releasing Telgrathia, I had about 30 visits a week (on my personal site and Telgrathia's). Now I'm getting something like 12 a day. This should help me get some feedback and improve Telgrathia and my other project WASTE (still in pre-full published form, though available, it'll probably see 1st Edition by the end of summer, should I get Telgrathia back on the backburner).

If you wouldn't mind putting up a notice that there is a feedback form, and feedback is requested, that would be nice. Unfortunately, I've forgotten my Wikidot account's password, and I don't have the time to find it.